


icarus

by hotcuppa



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Insecurity, Light Angst, Love Confessions, M/M, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, if u squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-12
Updated: 2020-05-12
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:53:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24152356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hotcuppa/pseuds/hotcuppa
Summary: the sticky notes started back when he and derek were still just friends.
Relationships: Derek Morgan/Spencer Reid
Comments: 17
Kudos: 458





	icarus

**Author's Note:**

> title is inspired by sunlight by hozier
> 
> this is my first work for the pairing/fandom so pls be kind 🥺🤍
> 
> set loosely around s3/s4 i guess?

the sticky notes started back when he and derek were still just friends. 

spencer would argue, honestly, that he and derek have never been  _ just  _ friends, that they’ve always had something lying underneath the surface, something more than the friendly flirtationship they played at. for a while, spencer thought he was the only one who noticed it. but then derek had kissed him and asked him to please accompany him for dinner one night, and they’ve been  _ more _ ever since. 

and he still leaves derek sticky notes. 

it started when they’d had a discussion about narcissistic personality disorder, after the incident with tobias hankel. they’d been discussing what the disorder actually looks like when they’d been interrupted and called in for a case. derek had made a comment, before they walked into the briefing, about knowing lots of narcissists. spencer hadn’t had the time to respond, so he’d scribbled it down on a sticky note— _ did you know narcissistic personality disorder is actually super rare with fewer than 200,000 cases in the US per year?  _ and he’d stuck it onto derek’s computer monitor before hurrying off to join the rest of the team. 

after that, it became a thing. spencer would leave little  _ did you know _ notes on derek’s computer, relating to some conversation they’d had that day or some case they were working. derek loved them, always asked questions about them and even mentioned the facts to other people, sometimes. and he always smiled at reid when he did.

and then they’d started dating, and the sticky notes became a mix of  _ did you know _ s and cute little notes about liking derek’s shirt that day or how fun their date had been the night before. 

for example, on their first date, they’d gone to derek’s favorite restaurant. spencer wasn’t all that surprised to find himself walking into a restaurant that was lined wall to wall with flat screen tvs playing multiple different sports games, and he tried to take it in stride as best he could, ordering the safest thing on the menu and trying to pretend that the volume in the restaurant wasn’t giving him a headache. 

derek had ordered chicken wings and tried relentlessly to get spencer to try one, but he’d refused. chicken wings are  _ messy,  _ first of all, and spencer hadn’t wanted to embarrass himself by making a mess of his face and his clothes. but he couldn’t tell derek that, so he’d made up some excuse about not wanting to choke on a chicken bone. of course, derek had laughed at him and spencer had blushed, but it’d worked and derek didn’t push him anymore. 

the next day, spencer made sure to leave a little note on his computer:  _ did you know that choking is the fourth leading cause of unintentional injury death, following only automobile accidents, poisonings, and falls? choking causes over 100,000 trips to the ER per year.  _ and he’d added a little heart at the end for good measure. when derek read the note, he’d walked over to spencer and stuck a sticky note of his own on his forehead, one that read:  _ let me take you out again, pretty boy.  _

the rest, as they say, is history. 

as much of a routine as the sticky notes have become, with spencer leaving at least one per week whenever they’re in the BAU, he’s never found himself quite as nervous to leave one as he is today. while he could just leave some random fact about greek food, because derek had gone to get gyros with prentiss and rossi, he wants today’s to be different.  _ special.  _

it’s not exactly a secret that reid is unfamiliar with romance. he has no prior experience and very little understanding of social protocols. especially when it comes to things like this. because he and derek slept together for the first time last night, and they haven’t acknowledged it since. reid  _ wants  _ to acknowledge it, he just doesn’t know how. he doesn’t know where they’re supposed to go from here, or how to address it. 

is he even supposed to address it? he can’t imagine continuing to ignore it, because he’s awkward enough without this unresolved tension between them, and besides, the last thing he wants is for morgan to think that he didn’t enjoy it. because he did. and he’d quite like for it to happen again. and the only way he knows he can guarantee that happening is if they talk about it, but, well. spencer’s never been great at talking about things, either. 

the other thing about it is this—reid is pretty sure he’s in love with derek. he’s done a lot of research on love, and there’s more indicators of love than reid had anticipated. and now that he knows that he’s in love, he wants to tell morgan. he wants to know if morgan feels the same (though he meets many of the same requirements that reid does, according to the research and the behavior that reid has observed, but it would still be nice to know for sure.) except, again, reid isn’t good at talking. 

so the note it is. 

but he can’t just write  _ thanks for the intercourse  _ on a note that he’s going to leave where anybody could see it. morgan’s desk in the bullpen is hardly private, and their colleagues hardly mind their own business. whatever reid writes, somebody—or multiple people—will read it before morgan does. garcia  _ definitely  _ will. and he doesn’t want to make their newly established sex life anybody else’s business. (he also just doesn’t want to get reported to HR for sexual harassment.)

reid checks his watch, and curses to himself when he sees that their lunch is over in less than ten minutes. morgan will be coming out of that elevator any minute now, and reid will lose the nerve if he doesn’t do it now. he has to leave a note now. 

quickly, he scribbles a little  _ 49% _ in the middle of the sticky note, and then draws a heart around it. and before he can think better of it, he hurries over to derek’s desk and sticks it right on top of the files he’d left there to finish after lunch. 

heart in his throat, he hurries off to go make his third coffee of the day, just so he won’t have to be at his desk when morgan gets back from lunch and sees the note. he’s pretty sure morgan won’t know what it means, but morgan is a profiler, and well. reid can’t rule out the possibility that he will figure it out, even if it’s not immediately. 

jj comes up into the break room with spencer, eyeing him carefully. he knows she must’ve seen the way he left the note and ran, and known something’s up. he thinks that’s probably the worst part about working with people who know human behavior—more specifically,  _ his _ behavior—so well. they always seem to know when something is different. 

“everything okay, spence?” she asks, reaching for her own paper cup and waiting for him to finish pouring his coffee. 

“yes, i’m fine. why do you ask?”

“your hands are shaking.”

reid looks down at his own hands as he hands her the coffee pot, and realizes she’s right. “you know, there are plenty of reasons someone’s hands might be shaking; for example, a seizure, overactive thyroid, side effects of certain medications, caffeine overdose, alcohol or drug withdrawal, huntington’s—” he cuts himself off when he sees the way jj is staring him down, and a blush burns on his cheeks. “okay, perhaps i am a little bit anxious.”

jj nods, “did something happen between you and derek?” 

reid blushes harder, focusing on stirring his sugar and creamer into his coffee rather than look at her. if he looks at her, she’ll definitely be able to read it all over his face. “no, nothing like that. he and i are, um, very well.”

“i just noticed that you ran off after leaving him that sticky note.”

“oh. did you, um, happen to read it?”

“i mean, it wasn’t hard to notice,” jj admits, giving him a sheepish look. he still avoids meeting her gaze. “but i don’t know what it means. forty-nine percent could be a lot of things, and i know you two aren’t getting divorced so…” she trails off, her eyes widening, and she grabs onto his forearm. “spencer, are you two—”

spencer shakes his head rapidly, eyes almost as wide as hers. “no, no, no. n-no, we’re not… we haven’t been together that long, we haven’t— i mean, we aren’t— he and i are just—”

“you’re not engaged,” jj says, and reid nods hurriedly. “okay. well, if there is something you want to talk about, you know i’m here for you right?” reid nods, offering her a small, close-lipped smile. “good.”

she starts to step away, go back to her office presumably, and spencer’s skin prickles with uneasiness. he still feels like she’s onto him, like she knows something. “by the way,” he begins, making her stop and spin on her heel to face him again, “um, by the way, only 41% of marriages end in divorce. and that’s just for first marriages. for second marriages, the number increases to 60%, and 73% for third marriages. in fact, there is one divorce every thirteen seconds. that’s 2,419,196 divorces per year.”

jj just blinks at him, and reid realizes that he’s digging himself an even deeper hole in his desperate attempt to get out of it. “you know where to find me if you need to talk, spence,” she repeats softly, and then finally leaves the break room. 

spencer takes a few seconds to collect himself before he follows her out to the bullpen, coffee clutched so tightly in his hand that it’s burning his palm. he catches sight of derek immediately, sitting at his desk with prentiss leaning over his shoulder, pointing at something on his computer. he takes derek’s distraction as an in to hurry to his desk unnoticed, quickly sitting down and trying to bury himself in paperwork. 

unfortunately, derek notices him immediately, and waves prentiss away. spencer tries not to let his anxiety show enough for derek to see it. 

“hey, pretty boy,” derek grins, and spencer forces himself to look up and return the greeting. “been looking for you.”

“i was, uh— i was getting coffee.” he raises his coffee cup as if to prove it, like he’d have any reason to lie. “and, um, talking to jj.”

derek nods, and then scoots his chair over slightly so he’s closer to reid. “so, that note you left me. is it some sort of inside joke or reference that i’m supposed to understand?”

“no,” reid shrugs, “just a statistic.”

“mhm. a statistic about what, exactly?”

reid sips his coffee, and hisses when it burns his tongue. derek laughs at him, and reid shoots him a glare. “uh, just— you’ll have to… to figure it out.” he smiles a bit at derek, half expecting him to push the issue. but he doesn’t. instead, he just gives reid this long look, like he’s trying to figure something out. 

“everything okay, pretty boy?”

reid sighs, “yes, everything is fine. it’s just… not… what i mean to say is, it isn’t very— it’s not work appropriate.” his cheeks flame as he forces the words out, and his eyes dart around to ensure that nobody is close by or paying enough attention to them to overhear the conversation. 

derek smirks, leaning back in his chair. “alright, kid. i see.” he plucks the note off of his computer and then reaches down under his desk, opening a box. spencer watches curiously as he adds the sticky note to the box which is, interestingly enough, filled with a couple other sticky notes. when derek looks back at him, he must read the confusion on reid’s face, because he shrugs and says, “i haven’t had time to take the box home yet.”

and, really, that explains absolutely nothing. there’s no reason for derek to have a box of sticky notes to take home. unless he throws them away at home, to keep people from digging through the trash? or maybe he takes home the ones he wants to look up later, and he saved that one to remind himself to ask spencer what it means?

in the end, reid resolves to leave it alone. derek’s business is derek’s business. 

“are you busy tonight?” he asks instead, delighting in the way derek smiles at him. 

“never too busy for you, reid,” derek responds, because he hardly ever calls him  _ spencer  _ at work. they’d promised hotch that their relationship wouldn’t affect their work and that they would remain as professional as possible, even if they were just in the bullpen. “want to just come home with me instead of me driving you home later?”

spencer shrugs, turning back to his paperwork. “it does make the most sense, considering my car is still at your place.”

“oh, so you’re just gonna let me drive you to your car so you can go home?” derek teases. 

“i didn’t say that,” reid teases back. “just simply that it made the most sense. but, uh, i’m more than happy to stay over for a bit, if you want. get some paperwork done together.”

“yeah, paperwork. sounds like a good time.”

spencer smiles, “it will be.”

//

they don’t get a case that day, so true to his word, derek drives spencer back to his place that evening. they decide to order takeout for dinner and spend twenty minutes arguing about whether to get thai or mexican, but spencer wins (because derek can’t say no to him), so they end up with thai food. 

spencer changes into his own sweats and one of derek’s t-shirts, and then sits on the couch with derek to eat and watch a movie. since spencer picked dinner, derek picks the movie, and they end up watching  _ top gun.  _ it’s not spencer’s favorite—in fact, he hardly likes the movie at all—but he doesn’t mind putting up with it, if it makes derek happy. he just eats his food and pretends to watch it, laughing in all the right places, but mostly watching derek watch it. 

“you know,” reid says towards the end, when he thinks derek’s attention isn’t too invested in the film, “charlie shouldn’t be wearing those badges on her jacket. technically, she’s a government civilian, and it’s against federal law to wear badges that you haven’t earned.”

“is that so?”

“mhm,” reid nods. “and both iceman and slider wear patches from va-25, but va-25 never operated f-14s. at the time they filmed this movie, va-25 flew a-7 corsairs, which were subsonic attack aircraft designed in the 1960s to replace the douglas a-4 skyhawk. today the va-25, which is now the vfa-25, flies the f/a-18 hornet which was introduced to the navy in 1984. and—”

suddenly, derek’s lips are on his. spencer tries to kiss back despite being taken by surprise, only to find that derek is hardly even kissing him in the first place—he’s laughing way too hard to kiss him properly. spencer pouts, pulling out of the kiss and crossing his arms over his chest. 

“you could just tell me to shut up.”

derek laughs harder, reaching up to place one hand against spencer’s cheek. “i know, baby, but kissing you is so much nicer. and i like it a lot better, don’t you?” spencer nods, because he does like it, and is rewarded by another quick kiss. 

“i just thought you might be interested to know what the navy actually flies, because this movie is really a navy recruitment film more than anything. in fact, the navy actually set up recruitment booths in major movie theaters when this movie was released to try and get guys to sign up, and as a result they had the highest application rate since—”

this time, instead of interrupting spencer with a kiss, derek interrupts him by saying, “god, i love you.” and everything within spencer reid’s body freezes. “did you know that? i love you so much.”

and spencer  _ did _ know that, but somehow hearing it out loud is making his brain short circuit. he’s tempted to start blurting out more facts about  _ top gun  _ and the us navy, but with the soft gaze that derek still has on him, he finds that his tongue is paralyzed too. 

he  _ knows  _ he should say it back. he knows that, technically, he told derek first. that stupid sticky note about how 49% of people lose their virginity to someone they’re in love with, if derek had only put the puzzle pieces together…

but he hadn’t, and now derek was saying it first, and spencer felt like he just swallowed his tongue. 

derek smiles, reaching out to rest his hand on spencer’s knee. the touch makes his entire stomach light up with butterflies. “hey, it’s okay, pretty boy. you don’t have to say it back. i just thought you should know, if you didn’t already.”

spencer swallows hard. “i— i did. know, that is. i did already know,” he admits. he expects derek to frown, to maybe be confused on why spencer won’t say it back, but instead derek just smiles even wider. 

“good.” he pats spencer’s knee again, and then stands up from the couch. “i’m gonna get this cleaned up, why don’t you go on ahead to bed?” 

dumbly, spencer nods, standing up from the couch and making his way to derek’s bedroom. he feels like a gigantic asshole, knows that derek is probably beating himself up over saying it without being sure that spencer was ready to say it back. and it’s even more frustrating to know that he  _ does  _ want to say it back, he’s just terrified because he’s never had this happen before. he’s never had anybody love him like this before. and, in the moment, more than he wanted to say  _ i love you too,  _ he’d wanted to ask why. he’d wanted to ask  _ are you sure?  _

the only person who has ever truly loved spencer is his mother, and that’s a completely different sort of love entirely. spencer never,  _ ever  _ expected to be on the receiving end of this type of love, and it’s so heavy that he doesn’t really know what to do with it. in all honesty, he’s kind of terrified of it. it’s so heavy that he’s scared of being crushed by it. 

when derek finally comes into the bedroom, it’s to spencer just sitting on the edge of the bed, staring at the wall. spencer tries to flash derek a comforting smile, but he knows that it falls short, and he knows that derek would be able to see straight through it anyway. 

“are you okay, baby?” derek asks, standing between spencer’s legs and running one hand through his hair. 

spencer leans forward and rests his forehead against derek’s sternum. “i’m feeling a little bit anxious,” he admits, because he can hide his feelings from jj and the team but he won’t hide his feelings from derek anymore. at least, not these feelings. “not because— i mean, sort of because— i don’t want you to feel like you made a mistake by telling me that you love me. i… i already knew, and it’s not that i— what i’m trying to say is, i’ve never felt this before and i am a little bit scared of… of the meaning behind this whole thing. the ramifications, the consequences, the—”

“why are you talking about it like it’s such a bad thing?” derek asks, smoothing his hand across the nape of spencer’s neck. “why do you think this will have consequences?”

“doesn’t love typically have consequences?” he sighs, presses his forehead harder against derek's chest. “i’m not the type of guy who— statistically speaking, 100% of the times i’ve loved somebody, it hasn’t worked out. i’m not the type of guy that men like  _ you _ go for. alpha males tend to be attracted to gamma women. beautiful women, almost trophy wives, and i've seen you with lots of beautiful women so i know that you are more than capable of attracting women of an equal social standing.”

for a long few moments, derek doesn’t respond. he just runs his fingers through spencer’s hair, and if it didn’t feel so nice and comforting, spencer knows he’d be spouting off even more random statistics and facts. but for now, he waits with bated breath. 

derek pulls spencer’s head off of his chest, and cups his face between both hands. he forces the eye contact that spencer had been trying to avoid, making spencer squirm and try desperately to will away any tears. 

“for someone so goddamn smart, you can be really oblivious,” he murmurs, and spencer furrows his eyebrows. “statistically speaking, 100% of my previous relationships haven’t worked out. it only has to work once, spence. i only want it to work once. i’ve only cared enough to want to make it work with one person, and it isn’t with any of those women. it’s with you. because i love you. i’m in love with you. and if you want it to work, and i want it to work, then it’ll work. we’ll make it work. i wouldn’t be here if i didn’t think this was something real, if i thought we couldn’t go the distance. i’ve loved you for a long time, pretty boy, and i intend to keep on doing that for as long as you’ll have me. okay?”

any hopes spencer had of making it through this conversation without getting misty-eyed were over, but thankfully, the tears are accompanied by a smile. spencer leans up to connect their lips, wrapping his arms around derek’s neck and pulling him in as close as he can get without them toppling over onto the bed. 

derek kisses him back with equal fervor, hands finding their place on spencer’s waist like that’s where they were meant to be. spencer isn’t big on the concept of soulmates, but it kind of feels like derek might be his based on how seamlessly they seem to fit together, physically and emotionally. 

when they pull back, reid bumps their noses together just to see derek smile again. “thank you,” he whispers, and derek kisses him once more in return. “i’m gonna go make us some hot chocolate, since you won’t let me have coffee before bed.”

derek rolls his eyes, “the last thing you need before bed is more caffeine, baby. besides, i’d hardly call that sugary shit you drink  _ coffee.” _

spencer sticks his tongue out at him before hurrying out to the kitchen, idea already firmly planted in his mind. he didn’t particularly want hot chocolate, but he did want a way to tell derek that he loved him back. and, since words always failed him, he was going to turn to sticky notes for the second time today. 

the box of hot chocolate mix is almost empty, so spencer makes a mental note to buy more later. he heats up the milk on the stove, and while waiting for it to get hot enough, he digs around through derek’s drawers to try and find any sticky notes. they work a desk job most of the time, so he knows that there has to be some  _ somewhere.  _

he eventually hits gold right as the timer goes off for the milk, so he hurries back to the kitchen with his sticky notes. he pours the hot milk into two mugs and then adds in the hot chocolate mix, and then mixes it in. while he waits for the hot chocolate to cool enough to add marshmallows, he grabs a sharpie from the living room and writes on the sticky note:

_ did you know that it is 100% probable that i am very much in love with you, too? _

he caps the sharpie and puts it back in its place, and then grabs the bag of marshmallows from the pantry. he adds five to derek’s and ten to his, and then sticks the note onto derek’s mug. heart pounding practically out of his chest, he grabs both cups and makes his way back to the bedroom. 

at first, derek doesn’t seem to notice it. he accepts the cup gratefully, and takes a sip immediately, hissing when the hot chocolate burns his tongue. spencer is just settling into his side of the bed, making a joke that that’s what he gets for laughing at spencer when he’d burnt his tongue on his coffee earlier, when he finally hears the rustle of paper. 

five seconds pass before derek is reaching over and pulling spencer into another passionate kiss, and this time spencer is the one smiling too hard to kiss properly. 

“i fucking love you,” derek mumbles into his mouth. he tastes like hot chocolate and marshmallows, with a hint of mint from the candy he’d popped right after eating the thai earlier. “i’m so in love with you.”

“did you know,” spencer murmurs, in between derek’s kisses, “that 49%,” more kisses, “of people,” even  _ more,  _ “lose their virginity to,” four more, “someone they’re in love with?”

derek pulls back, admires the kiss-dazed look on spencer’s face, and then breaks out into another huge smile. spencer wonders if his face is beginning to hurt from all the smiling. “is that what your note meant earlier? you were trying to tell me you loved me?”

“jj thought we were engaged,” spencer tells him, and derek laughs happily. “i told her it was much too soon. on average, couples date for 4.9 years before getting married. dating for almost a year and a half, then living together for twenty-two months, and then for twenty months they are engaged. we’ve been seeing each other for three months, so we still have quite some time before marriage, generally speaking. really, we should be preparing to move in together in seven months, if— if you want to be together that long, and move in together. i think you’d be a good roommate, and i’m already over here most nights anyway. 4.9 years sounds like a really long time to wait, to me, but maybe that’s just because i’ve known you for so long. i think that if you proposed to me at six months, i would probably say yes.”

derek looks overwhelmed by the overload of information that spencer had nervously dumped on him, and rightfully so. spencer is retrospectively embarrassed at everything he just blurted out. he just doesn’t know when to stop, sometimes. 

then derek is fiddling with the sticky note, and spencer swallows really hard. “you’d say yes in three months, if i asked you?” derek questions, and spencer nods. there’s no use in lying about something he’d already stupidly blurted out. “i think… i think i’d say yes if you asked me tomorrow.”

“i— you do? you would?”

derek shrugs, “like i said, i intend to love you for as long as you’ll have me. whether i have to court you for 4.9 years or we get engaged in one hour, nothing changes for me. i know how i feel and i know how i’ve felt for years. i’m not saying we should get engaged tomorrow, i think it’s not the best timing. i’m just saying, you know, that i wouldn’t say no. if you asked.” derek moves then, reaching over the edge of the bed to pick up a box. it’s an unassuming black shoebox, and spencer almost doesn’t pay it any attention, but when derek opens the lid, spencer realizes he’s staring at hundreds of sticky notes. 

“you’ve kept all of them?”

derek looks up at him with wide eyes, like he’s surprised spencer is even asking that question. spencer is surprised that derek is surprised. “of course i have. most of them, anyway. i even still have your stupid note about how 70-92% of men in the usa are circumcised. damn near got me in trouble with hotch and strauss for that one.” he adds the new note to the box, and then digs around for another one. “this one here used to be my favorite.” he hands it over for spencer to read, even though they both know that spencer would remember exactly what it said if derek just told him when it was from. 

_ did you know that when you kiss someone, endorphins are released from your pituitary gland and hypothalamus, increasing feelings of euphoria? it also increases dopamine levels, making you crave more and more. _

“after our first kiss,” spencer muses, handing the note back to derek to add to the box. “i didn’t know you were keeping all of those. i… i wouldn’t have written so many if i knew—”

“baby, shut up,” derek teases. 

spencer feels his face flush. “you were right, it is much nicer to be kissed than told to shut up.”

derek laughs, putting the box and his cup of hot chocolate to the side. spencer does the same. “come here and kiss me, then,” derek murmurs, already leaning forward and reaching out to bring spencer closer. spencer goes easily, letting himself be kissed quiet by the man he loves. 

**Author's Note:**

> all mistakes are my own


End file.
